Home → Products → The Durable Business → Discover (Part 1 of 5)

Happy Monday.

Let's talk about the week ahead, so you know what to expect. We have a LOT to cover, and we're excited to get started.

In last Friday's email we identified the four parts of a momentum-generating ‘flywheel' to build a durable business from $0 to $100,000+ in revenue.

(We also mentioned — publicly — that we're going to build a business from $0 to $100,000 and ‘show our work' along the way. Yikes!)

To refresh your memory, the four parts are:

• Discover
• Validate
• Build
• Scale & Optimize

Each of those parts leads — invariably — to the next.

(That's critical because that's how the system builds momentum over time. We'll share a visual later this week so you know exactly what we mean.)

Today through Thursday, we'll unpack each of those four elements in detail (one per day)…

Then, on Friday through midnight Monday (PST), we'll open enrollment for LBC2 (which has a new name we'll reveal below).

Let's start with Discover.

Warning: you'll be tempted to skip this step. DON'T. It may seem like it'll slow you down, but trust us when we say that this step is the most important.

Get it right, and everything is infinitely easier.

Get it wrong, and you'll be fighting headwinds every step of the way. (And you'll probably undermine any chance you have of building real, sustained momentum.)

If you're willing to go slow in the discover phase you'll go much faster later. Go slow to go fast.

(Write that down and put it somewhere you can see it every day. It's that important. It's based on a Navy SEAL philosophy: slow is smooth and smooth is fast.)

The goal of the discover process is to define a minimum viable audience (MVA) you seek to serve, and then identify 1-3 significant problems (or meaningful desires) you can charge money to help that audience solve (or fulfill).

Read that sentence again.

Notice what's missing?

There's no mention of a product or an offer, and that is deliberate.

The discover phase is when we listen very closely to what an audience wants, expressed in their own words, before we begin to identify potential solutions.

Yes, of course, we're thinking about who we want to serve and how we might be able to help. But we're not rushing to solutions. In fact, we're not thinking about solutions at all.

If you listened to our conversation with Jonathan Boyd, you heard him describe in detail how he gathered insights and feedback from real people before he crafted an offer. That's a brilliant idea (and no doubt contributed to his 100x growth in eleven months).

In fact, Jonathan paid to advertise on Facebook to talk with prospects to better understand their needs and desires — before he had anything to sell! (We'll show you how to do that too.)

We also want to draw your attention to the word ‘minimum' in minimum viable audience. This is very important.

In the beginning, we're going to define a very narrow audience so we can (later) craft a solution that's ideal for their particular needs.

We're not going to try to be everything to everyone. That takes too long (and it's far too likely to fail).

If we go too broad at first, we'll lose the power of specificity…

If we're too narrow, the pool of prospects won't be large enough to produce meaningful results.

Instead, we want to find the “Goldilocks” sweet spot right in the middle.

Not too big, not too small, just right. (The specifics will be unique to your business — don't worry, we'll show you how to figure that out.)

We'll also leverage our Audience and Offer Masterclass.

AOM was originally created for the first cohort of The Traffic Engine (and later made available, for free, to all of our customers), AOM is a step by step framework for matching an audience's compelling needs to your experience, knowledge, and expertise.

In addition to AOM, the Discover phase will include our strategies and tools for soliciting and capturing audience insights and our method for prioritizing those insights before moving on to the validation phase.

By the time you've finished the Discover phase, you'll have a crystal clear view of a minimum viable audience you're able to serve and a deep understanding of 1-3 problems or desires that audience has that you can help them solve or fulfill.

More importantly, this won't be just an intellectual exercise…

You will have ‘left the building' and talked with real, live people, heard their language, and really understood the 'emotional temperature' associated with their problems and desires.

(We're using the phrase ‘left the building' metaphorically, which seems important to mention during a global pandemic. All interactions will be virtual. But we will emphasize real-time, conversational feedback to get the best results.)

The discovery work we do will be critical for the next stage: Validation.

That's when we'll confirm that the problems and desires we've identified really matter (which means our audience is willing to pay for solutions). And that's also when we'll begin to test our ideas for offers.

The best part: we'll confirm our minimum viable audience is interested and motivated before we build any of the supporting infrastructure.

(That's how we stack the deck in our favor in advance.)

More about Validation in tomorrow's email.

We've turned on comments on our new product page for this course.

Please ask questions in the comments, and share any insights you've had so far. If you're excited to be part of this journey with us, tell us what part specifically is lighting you up.

(If possible, use the comments rather than replying to this email. Our support inbox still has unanswered emails from our Fall enrollment. It stresses us out to no end having this many unanswered emails.)

André and Shawn